The real stories from inside the F1 paddock

A quick catch up…

I don’t do a review of the year on this blog. You can get my opinions on what happened in 2012 by way of GP+ and the Business of Motorsport newsletter, if you care to know. If you want everything for free then… tough!

I thought, however, it might amuse you all to know that the most absurd moment of my season of F1 travelling was when I was asked for ID when ordering a glass of wine in a restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Being a middle-aged man, with a slight frosting of the locks, this was plain silly. “It’s the law,” they told me in an exasperated fashion when I said: “You’re kidding me!” and I wondered whether it might be a good moment to ruminate on the absurdity of a system that allows you to be killed while serving your country in the military, buy guns, vote, smoke, serve on a jury and be prosecuted as an adult, but will not let you buy an alcoholic drink…

Absurdity is never far from life when one is in Formula 1 as the people involved tend to be slightly more “out there” than the average, and we travel to many varied and interesting places. Still, over the Christmas break things tend to go very quiet on the news front and the only source of excitement is that Team X or Team Y has passed a crash test. There is the New Year’s Honour list in the UK but the sporting side of 2012 was utterly dominated by the Olympic Games. I do enjoy scanning through the Honours as one sees the most remarkable things: “For services to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and London Underground” was a particular favourite this year, amid all the usual for service to beekeeping, pipe band music in Northern Ireland, Scottish country dancing, bowls, the rather sinister “for services to defence” and my absolute favourite this year: “for services to wildlife crime enforcement and to girl guiding”.

I noted that the President of the World Curling Federation was given a CBE after two years in the job and could not help but feel a little sorry for Max Mosley’s efforts with the slightly larger FIA over a much longer period. Ah well, I guess it is still all about who you know…

The Legion d’Honneur in France offered a little more news with recognition as a Chevalier for Jean-Jacques Isserman, who worked alongside Professor Sid Watkins for many years to improve safety in F1. I was impressed by the fact that the award mentioned 63 years of service.

Elsewhere there was little to report. There is still no word on the identity of the second Force India driver, with the choice being down to Jules Bianchi and Adrian Sutil. It seems that the team is suddenly rather keen on Bianchi in that he is very well-connected at Ferrari and the team seems to be sniffing around for an engine supply from Italy for 2014, on the basis that this might offer a cheaper deal than Mercedes-Benz.

If one reads the Indian papers one continues to find all manner of stories about the team’s owners and sponsors, the most recent of which is that Kingfisher Airlines has lost its permit to fly, the deadline for the previously suspended license having expired.

The other piece of news was that there was a press release from a Russian organisation called “Formula Sochi”, which says that it is building the circuit that is needed for a race in 2014. This is good news as things were rather too quiet.

“The construction of the racing track in Sochi is going into high gear,” said
Alexander Bogdanov, CEO of Formula Sochi. “The 5854 m long circuit is one of the longest in the Formula One World Championship. The autodrome will also host different racing series.”

The statement said that “more than a thousand engineering personnel and workers and 110 units of construction machinery” are involved in the work. The circuit will be integrated into the Olympic Park infrastructure being built for the 2014 Winter Olympics. The track will run around the various facilities on the Olympic site with 18 corners in total. The release said that construction of Race Control building is nearing completion. They even sent out a picture of what it might one day look like.

There may have been residual political uneasiness about the name of Mosley. Not really fair, because Max had only a very minor involvement with Oswald Mosley’s post-war Union Movement when he was very young, and none whatsoever with the pre-war BUF, which was shut down more or less at the time he was born. However, there would have been the potential for (silly) headlines along the lines of “New Year’s Honour for fascist’s son”, which would tend to make political types nervous.

I hope Force India’s decisions are being made for racing not commercial reasons, Dr. Mallya’s record in the latter arena being spectacularly less than confidence inspiring. Off topic, but following the (valid) criticism of HRT’s closure processes, do we know what the future might hold for the many employees of the good doctor’s businesses?

It looks like Giedo van der Garde found him a big sponsor and might move to Force India as his budget is now over 16m. If he can not find a F1 seat he might do DTM for BMW. He did test the car and was very fast.

Getting ID’ed at a restaurant is rather unusual for those of us of advanced years, but the biggest supermarket in our area requires ID of anyone of any age when purchasing alcohol. The exposure is too much – places lose their license from selling to minors. A nice little local restaurant went under from this. So, instead of relying on the age-judging skills of the cashier, companies simply apply the ‘card everyone’ policy.

Getting “carded” for liquor is very common for younger looking folks in the US. But I have to say that most servers use common sense when asking for ID. I’m in my early 40’s and don’t remember the last time I was asked for ID at a restaurant, but I still get asked for ID to get into bars. I suspect the restaurant you visited was busted for serving minors. Generally speaking those establishments that are the most stringetnt are the ones that have been busted by the state agenecies responsible for liquor licensing.

i fly within the US 2 or 3 times per week. Airport bars and restaurants carding EVERYBODY is quite universal these days. The idea, as stated above, is to remove all age decision-making from employees. I agree it is ludicrous, but the penalties for serving those underage are severe and for an airport establishment i suspect most of its income is generated by alcohol.

A pity Sid did not get anything, since he undoubtedly saved many lives. Any news yet on the new doc for this year onwards?
I am still terrified that the FIA are going to say that conditions and standards have improved worldwide and local doctors will attend instead of our proper experts. (this may lead to a drunken cigar smoking incompetent being in charge in some countries)

Max actually did a lot for F1 and safety.
If nothing else he was in the news every week doing the F1 promotion work that is so obviously lacking today. When did you see Todt in the international news, let alone dare to express an opinion?

Joe – do you see any way the circuit could be constructed the way it is presented here, and still comply with FIA safety regulations? Especially in the Istanbul-Turn-8-like corner there seems to be no way they could create enough runoff…

Why not make the season review available for non-subscribers? At a price, I mean!

Most people have time off over the holidays, with your blog going quiter, you might be able to sell a few copies to people that do not want a full subscription, even though it might actually lead to one.

And it makes the subscription sound even better, as it ihen includes the archive and the season review.

If you subscribe, you’ll get change from £40. It’s a no brainer decision. I have only just done it but am already loving the magazine just from last year’s issues. It’s so much more than just reviewing the races, there are some fantastic articles that will never lose relevance.

Am I the only one looking at that graphic mock up and thinking there is no way that circuit is ever going to be built? I mean come on – the amount of pre-construction planning which goes into an Olympic park… If that circuit was going to be built there it needed to be designed 4 or 5 years ago and would be mostly built by now to ensure integration with the surrounding plots.
Not that it would be at all feasible due to the space constraints of such a busy site anyway. Any idea of the complexities of routing circulation routes, service access, etc around a multi venue site designed to handle tens of thousands of visitors a day? And that’s before you drop a dirty great big F1 track into the mix…

It’s someone’s idea of a PR stunt. A photoshopped circuit layout added to the Olympic park visualisation and some PR men fronting this new Formula Sochi organisation to push for some headlines.

Also, you appear not to realise the just released PR is an update/reminder… not a brand new announcement. The track layout seems substantially similar, (if not identical?) to the one proposed a couple of years back…. i.e.. it HAS been in planning for a reasonable amount of time…

Alcohol laws can be a little strange. In Indiana, you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays or Christmas day. However, you can be served alcohol on Sundays at a restaurant which does a certain dollar amount of annual business. You also can’t buy alcohol on any day of the week between 3AM and 7AM – but you can buy it up until 3AM on Sundays. For a short time, ID was required for anyone buying alcohol but that’s been rescinded.

Any news on the mysterious “European” race in July Joe? I think i read that FIA rules mandate that the calendar has to be fixed by 31st December but still the race is TBC on their website. Nice if lots of people have moved lots of things for no reason.

Joe
The honours list did not totally ignore motor sport. John Croslee from Northern Ireland recieved an OBE. As Ireland’s only racing car constructor there is many a famous driver who drove a Croslee in the early days of there career

Founder, Crosslé Car Company. For
services to Engineering and Manufacturing
in Northern Ireland.

I have to say I missed it too – had no idea he was a Dr.! (Am I the only sad git who scans the lists every time they come out… mainly because a couple of my friends / colleagues have been surprise recipients in the past?)

On the subject of the Sochi track, is it me or does it look like it is going to provide the most monstrously dull F1 races?
90 degree turn, 90 degree turn, short straight, 90 degree turn, one large continuous turn which seems rather pointless. I watched a video about it and it appeared to actually boast about no elevation change! Elevation change can be great for improving a track, it unsettles cars, makes it more fun to drive and makes driver skill more important, just look at Brazil, Texas and Spa. I really hope they don’t build this and race there, after Texas I was hoping promoters would realise a fast flowing track with elevation changes is what F1 needs, frankly I don’t care if the cars go past an Olympic stadium, harbour, Big Ben, skyscrapers or whatever, if the track is dull the race is dull.

Nope, I’ve just been thinking the same thing: a squirt of gas, brake, a half-second squirt of gas, brake, feather the accelerator around a medium-length corner, brake, a squirt of gas… you get the picture. It very much looks like the layout of the olympic park – which will have its own requirements – has dictated the layout of a formula 1 circuit, which is absurd for a purpose-built track. I have no problem with the circuit doing a burst of touring around some of the olympic venues but cars this powerful and with such an aerodynamic wake, not to mention run-off areas, need to stretch themselves out and I don’t see that in the accompanying photograph. For reference see Singapore, Valencia, and wasn’t the Chinese circuit built around a letter/character/glyph?

The design of the track appears to be determined by the shape of the buildings it has to circumnavigate. That can’t be the best way to design a circuit. Even when Tilke has complete freedom, he doesn’t seem to do a good job of facilitating a good race, so if he has as little feedom in this case as it appears, then in theory this design should be worse than his other ones.

The US restaurants asking for an ID from somebody who is clealry above the age limit are typically in trouble with the law. Having served under aged person and having been busted for it. And now being closely monitored. Hence asking for ID from everyone removes any possibility of a mis-judgement.

Last time I have been asked for an ID was almost 20 years ago before I moved here. Hard Rock Cafe in La Jolla asked for IDs even from the silver haired retired bunch in the neighboring table. From fereigner like I, they required a passport. Which of course was back at the hotel, hence I was not served alcohol…

Most corporate restaurants here in Atlanta uniformly ‘card’ every drinking patron not because they care about the risk of potentially serving a minor; rather, they care more about the proven liability attached to selective ‘profiling’. To remove that risk, chains make it a policy to card everyone. They would card Ascari if he were to zombie his way into the place …

Nice job in 2012. Thanks!

See you next year ahead of Austin, Joe. Buy you a drink at Hartsfield.